Tales of the Parodyverse

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MangaCool Jason
Sun Apr 11, 2004 at 01:58:24 am EDT
Subject
Oh, but it gets worse...*quickly written mini story inside* (no text)
Originally
The Legend of Big Thick Eddie #1: When an in-joke goes too far!
In Reply To

Nats
Sat Apr 10, 2004 at 07:30:26 pm EDT
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Big Thick Eddie 1.5


    It was a cold day in Hell's Bathroom when footsteps echoed softly through one of its garbage-filled, badly maintained alleyways. The footsteps shuffled to a stop as long haired woman wearing those shoes stopped next to an unmarked, rotted wooden door. Next to it was a flickering neon sign advertising Blarph beer, promising to make anyone 'more sicker' than any other brand.

    The woman pushed aside her long black hair with leather gloves, and carefully fastened her long coat closed as she started at the old wooden door through sunglasses. She reached out with her left hand gently and pushed the door...and nearly slammed into it before she noticed an old, faded sign that read 'Pull'.

    Before entering, she looked up to make sure she was at the right place. An old, rusted sign was above the door, missing most of its letters. It had a prominent soft drink logo at the top, and at the bottom read only 'Fat Toil'.

    'Close enough,' she thought to herself. She pulled the door toward her and headed into the near darkness inside.

    Soft, somber music played in the establishment. An old, rotting bar ran along one wall, with only half of its original barstools perched in front - the rest had long broken and never been replaced. The mirror behind it was dusty and cracked, as were the glasses stored along it.

    There were about a half dozen tables with two to three chairs each around them around the establishment. They were taken up either by individuals who were trying to soak their sorrows in alcohol alone, or by pairs pursuing illicit business transactions. A single pool table with peeling felt and a burned out light above it.

    She slipped her sunglasses off and headed to the bar slowly. The bartender was filthy, smelling of a public rest room at a badly maintained gas station. He seemed suddenly frightened at the sight of the woman.

    "Don't hit me again!" he cowered.
    
    "That answers my first question," the woman said. She raised an eyebrow. "You have seen someone pretending to be me."

    "Yes...but she wasn't so--"
    
    "Short, I know," the woman finished. "Do you know where she went?"
    
    "And you are?" the bartender asked.
    
    "I'd rather not say." She stared at the bartender steadily. "Was she arrested?"

    "No, the cops don't--" a man at the bar started to say with a slur in his speech. He stopped in mid-sentence and stared straight ahead, as if he lost his way before finishing his thought.

    "--come here," the bartender finished. "The cops don't come here. Big Thick Eddie knocked her cold, and we put her outside. I guess she left on her own. You're the real Keiko, aren't you?"

    "I'd rather not say," she repeated, even though by now the fact that her name was actually Keiko obvious. She then explained her reluctance with, "A name spoken in a place like this is a name remembered." She looked around the bar and saw an overly large man sitting at the bar next to the one with the slurring speech. "I suppose you're Big Thick Eddie?"

    The large man glanced at her dismissively for a moment before returning to his ale. He waited what seemed like an eternity before speaking, and waited even longer to complete one sentence. "That's me. What's it to you?"

    Keiko looked away from him without replying. "No one here saw where she went?"

    "I did," Big Thick Eddie recited slowly. He took a deep, sighing breath as if he were going to read a long story, but then, disappointingly, he only pointed to the back of the bar next to the pool table.

    Sitting at the small table Big Thick Eddie pointed to was a woman with dark hair, slouching and pressing an ice pack to her head. She didn't even see Keiko approach and stand over her.

    "Do you find it amusing claiming to be me?" the real Keiko asked.
    
    A much paler Asian woman looked up from the table. Keiko was slightly shocked that she was, in fact, Asian, but being that she was on the East Coast it wasn't all that uncommon. "It's a code name. You had one too, remember?"

    Keiko stumbled back a little. "What do you know about me?"
    
    "I was trained by Killer Shrike--" She looked over at a man slouching over a whiskey at an opposite table. "--and hired by Nats." She cringed as her own voice made her head hurt more. "I'm supposed to give you--" she looked up warily, "--a reputation of sorts, to ensure that you will be unwelcome in Paradopolis."

    "By Nats?" Keiko frowned. "Doesn't he work for minimum wage? How can he afford you?"

    The woman seemed confused. "He...he told me he owns this courier company that--" She cringed again and looked down. "--he showed me the keys and everything. He was driving an ITC delivery van."

    "I don't think ITC even has delivery vans," Keiko pointed out.
    
    The woman looked like she wanted to become invisible by then.
    
    "You didn't sleep with him, did you?" Keiko asked.
    
    That finally prompted her to turn away, seeming to fight off the urge to cry.

    "That's pretty much the expected reaction." Keiko turned and left the woman to sulk by herself. She approached the man with the whiskey that the woman pointed to a moment ago. "I hear you're called Killer Shrike."

    "What's it to you?" the man asked aggressively.
    
    "Been drinking quite a lot, eh?" Keiko asked.
    
    He raised his right index finger and appeared as if he were about to say something. But then he slid out of his chair and collapsed to the floor. Keiko looked down at his unconscious body on the floor. "Hmm," was all she said, before she turned and walked away.

    By the time she looked at the other woman's table again, she had vanished. Fortunately, Keiko didn't need to talk to her anymore - she had all the information she needed.

    "Hey fat boy," Keiko called out to Big Thick Eddie. He seemed a little hurt when he turned his head to look at her. "I'm sorry, I forgot your name."

    "Eddie," he said, somehow turning two syllables into a long, boring essay.
    
    She nodded. "Right. I see the handle of a baseball bat in your pocket. Why do you carry one?"
    
    He shrugged. "Well...it's a long story," he started slowly.
    
    "No, no," Keiko interrupted, suddenly fearing the prospect of growing old while Big Thick Eddie told a 'long story'. "Never mind. I'd rather not know."
    
    "Want anything to drink?" the bartender asked.
    
    She shook her head. "Sorry, I have to go. Places to go, people to kill. Incidentally, do you know where a courier service known as ITC might be located?"

    "I know where it is," Big Thick Eddie announced.
    
    "Never mind." Keiko backed toward the door quickly. "I'll just find a phone book." With that, she disappeared into the dark night of Paradopolis.

    "Did I ever tell you guys...about China?" Big Thick Eddie started.
    
    "Closing time!" the bartender announced. "Everyone out!"
    
    
---


    Keiko stopped in front of a building labeled with a gigantic sign that read 'ITC'. She secretly wondered what it stood for, but didn't really care all that much. After all, it was getting late, and she had little time to find Nats.

    She dialed the phone number listed below the sign, and waited. An answering service predictably picked up. "Yes," she told the operator, "I'm at ITC right now to pick up an item, and as usual, Nats is late."

    Keiko turned pale when she learned that he had been fired. "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Do you happen to know where he might be? At home...I see. What is he listed as in the phone book?"

    She thanked the operator and picked up the huge Paradopolis Politically Correct Non-Color Pages phone book she managed to steal from a phone booth on the way back from the bar. "Bill Reed," she whispered as she found his phone number quickly...and his address. "What kind of a crazy super hero lists his home address in the phone book?"

    It was only seconds later that she managed to hail a taxicab along the street. Once she gave her destination, the driver began telling her that he had to pick her up because she was a ray of sunshine compared to the usual 'weirdos' in Paradopolis. Keiko kept silent when he turned around for a moment, and she realized that he was missing an eye, and had some strange symbol surgically attached to where it used to be.

    "Keep the change," she told him after handing him a hundred bucks at their destination. "I was never here."

    "You got it." he drove away without saying another word.
    
    Keiko produced a retractable baton from her belt, and snapped it against her leg, extending it to its full length, and then raced around to the other side of the house. She took one look to make sure no one was around, and then smashed a pane of glass on the back door to the kitchen. She cursed to herself quietly when she realized that Nats had left the door unlocked all along.

    She walked through the house quickly, baton still in hand, as she checked around every corner carefully. She finally approached one bedroom door that was closed. She walked toward it slowly.

    When she pushed open the door, both she and the man inside were surprised. The baton was dangling from her left arm at her side as she stared at him. He was sitting at a computer, staring at her with his eyes glazed and his mouth hanging open.

    He reached for his keyboard and started typing, 'Guess who's here?' Before he could finish the sentence, however, the baton came down upon his fingers, and he howled in pain and backed away from the computer.

    "Please don't hurt me," he said pitifully as he rolled his office chair into the farthest corner to try and stay out of range of the baton.

    "What makes you think I'm here to hurt you?" Keiko asked quietly.
    
    "Because...you...kill people? And I've pissed you off?"
    
    She shook her head. "Do you think I could have survived as long as I have if I let people piss me off me so easily?"

    Nats looked confused. "You...aren't going to kill me?"
    
    Keiko retracted the baton and slipped it back into her coat, which she then deposited, neatly folded in half, on the edge of the bed. "Do you mind if I use your computer?" she asked.

    He looked confused again as he stood and rolled the chair toward her carefully. He moved to stand nearby and watch, mentally planning his escape in case something went wrong.

    "Look, I know you have some sort of abilities that can cause me much pain if I try and kill you." She began typing at the computer as she spoke. "I have done some research."

    "What are you doing?" Nats asked.
    
    "Telling your friends that you'll be tied up for a bit," Keiko said. She tapped the Enter key and reached for her coat again. She pulled out a roll of twine.

    "Surely you can't be serious," Nats protested.
    
    "I'm serious," she replied with a smile, "But the name is Keiko, not Shirley." She began unrolling the ball of twine. "You haven't tried to harm me, so I have little reason to kill you," she said, "However, if I leave you sitting here you may call someone more powerful than yourself to capture me. This way you have a little distraction while I get away."

    "What if I promise not to tell anymore?"
    
    Keiko frowned. "Honestly, would you accept that in trust from the Hooded Hood?"
    
    "No." Nats hung his head, clearly seeing her point. "But...I'm one of the good guys."

    Keiko smiled and tapped the rolling office chair gently, urging Nats to sit in it. "Not from my point of view. You've tried to cause me difficulty, and honestly I'm quite upset about it. Who was this woman you hired, anyway?"

    He shrugged. "One of CrazySugarFreakBoy!'s porn actress girlfriends or something. You'd have to ask him." He looked at the chair reluctantly.

    "Sit, please. I promise this won't hurt, and it'll be over quickly." Keiko rolled the chair closer to him.

    "I could just--" he started to say.
    
    "You won't," Keiko interrupted. "Everything you own is here, all your meager possessions. And you know this isn't a dead end for you...you will get out of this, and soon. I'm not harming you, I'm merely delaying you."

    He sighed. "I suppose we should just get this over with. CSFB! will be jealous of me, at least." He quietly sat down in the chair.

    Keiko walked around him and smiled briefly as she pulled some large colorful fabric from inside her coat, and unfolded it. It turned out to be a large glider style kite. She attached the roll of twine to it and then reached into her pants pocket, producing two one hundred dollar bills. She stuffed them into the kite, and flung it out the window carefully so it caught a stiff wind.

    She then handed Nats the roll of twine carefully. "I'm sure you'll do the right thing," she said. She then snatched her coat and quickly raced out of the room.

    Nats looked at the doorway for a moment, and then the ball of twine in his hand. He didn't have much time to think. "Awww, dammit to hell," he grumbled to himself as he started reeling in the kite. He really could use two hundred bucks.

    After he had the two bills safely in hand, he raced through his house quickly and out the front door. Outside was nothing but silence, and his heart sunk as he realized...he'd fallen for one of the cruelest tricks he could imagine.



-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2004 by Jason Froikin, and may not be
-- reprinted without permission.


To the Spirit of the Night, I surrender...


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